


The Gardener

by virgil



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: F/M, Fluff, old link & old zelda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:36:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22251952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virgil/pseuds/virgil
Summary: link & zelda, many years after the calamity. no longer cautious, no longer anxious. quieter, softer, effortless.
Relationships: Link/Zelda (Legend of Zelda)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 63
Collections: Goldsmith's favorites





	The Gardener

**Author's Note:**

> pure fluff.

The Silent Princesses were his favorite, the way they glowed softly in the half-light, how they smelled like her. Or so he said. She didn’t believe it, but she’d giggle and push at him playfully, like they were young again. He made her feel young again.

The children, were, of course, grown, and the land itself gone through its years of new struggles. The thing about a great upheaval is that it keeps finding ways to make itself known. They would never have the past again, but they could work to make sure no others had to go through what they did. The least that one can do, and the most noble duty.

She had hung up her royal robes years before. The children would play with her things when they were younger, playing princess and knight and villain. Simple fantasies. They’re always easier when they’re simple, she told them. In this world things rarely are, so treasure them when you can. She remembered their faces, staring up in wonder. They all meant so much to her.

They weren’t all _their_ kids, really. Zelda could never stand to see a child without care, so along with her babes by blood she would watch over the children from the village, over the young Zora and the Goron rocklings when they visited. They were celebrities, as far as Hyrule was concerned, and even Link warmed up to the company over time. He always loved the children.

Now, the visits are so often the children of the next generation, the ones that Link and Zelda never thought would make it. The grasses were turning golden in the sun of Autumn, the land coloring itself in a grand finale before the great sleep of Winter. She was aging just as a queen would, regal in her years but not quite gray yet. And he, of course, rugged and stony, broader in his adulthood than the lithe teen of his youth. Quiet, but no longer the anxious quiet of a would-be adventurer.

The sword was hung above their bed. He would take it down occasionally, to shine it, but it felt different now. More often used for utility than to slam into the sides of some ancient machine or bloodmoon-spawned monster. That was good, he thought.

He had the quiet of a gardener, of one used to tending. To maintaining, to repairing. To holding things together when they felt so much like breaking. She loved that about him, and he loved her, and there wasn’t much else that needed to be said.

In the last week, they found a crying cub in the thicket, all caught up in trying to free itself. He cut the right thorns out of the way and she cradled the wolven babe into the meadow. It loped around for a moment, sniffing the air before darting into the high grasses. In the distance, the packs were circling, more peaceful than the decades past. The horizon’s light cut through the red leaves and the nearby village’s smokestacks.

Sometimes it is like that, she thought. Sometimes the best you can do is help out in a small way and trust the world to breathe calm through it.

He squeezed her hand then. We all are doing what we can, he said. We made it so much farther than we thought we would. He would look into her eyes then, and she, of course, would melt.

We have done good, she thought. We have done so much good.

A good and handsome gardener, she thought. Good and steadfast.


End file.
